Australian Film Earnings

I’m not that big of an Aussie Film fan, but The Black Balloon that come out a few years ago was pretty good.The film was a coming of age story about a boy who has to deal with a new school, picking up Gemma Ward and also his family… oh, and his autistic brother. But this post isn’t about that movie, but it did gross $500,000 in it’s opening week end.I was on the Inside Film website reading about film festivals when I stumbled across an article about the Aussie film, Lucky Country opening with $13K.That’s a measly figure compared to the usual film opening ticket sales that you hear about from American summer films. Like how Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince opened with the highest intake yet from a Harry Potter film.Looking at the table below, it’s pretty sad to see how badly Australian films are doing. Even films with large budgets (anything over $1M) are not making much money at all. Only one film has made profit and that’s most likely due to the fact that it won an award at Cannes.The total box office for local 2009 releases has now reached $8,517,713.Film Budget   Distributor   Opening w/e  WIR Box Office  Samson and Delilah $1.6m   Para/Trans/Footprint   $        199,163  11 $     2,738,888Mary and Max $8m   Icon   $        217,176  15 $     1,444,046My Year Without Sex $3.8m   Para/Trans/Footprint   $        177,461  8 $        991,583Love the Beast  Madman   $          241,982  9 $          777,351The Combination $1.169m   AFS   $          188,054  11 $          727,586Disgrace $10m   Icon   $        209,014  5 $        896,600Two Fists, One Heart $8.5m   BVI   $            96,999  2 $          295,500Wake in Fright  Madman   $          25,446  4 $           168,859Beautiful $2m   Kojo/Jump Street   $            22,406  6 $            55,619Closed for Winter $2m   Omnilab Media   $            19,449  6 $            48,197Shadows of the Past $  820,000 Summer Night   $          13,927  10 $            44,050Bastardy $260,000 Film Camp $              7,822  4 $             31,772The Chifleys of Busby St  Ronin   $              3,760  1 $            13,123Crush $2m   Filmscope/Odin’s Eye   $              8,304  1 $            13,051Lucky Country Est, $2m  Para/Trans/Footprint    $             11,413 1 $            13,041The Burning Season  Gil Scrine/Freshwater $         2 $             4,865Salvation  Hopscotch   $              2,262  1 $              3,182Prey   $4m   Damage Releasing   $              1,089  1 $              1,089Bastardy$250,000 Palace     1 $            31,772      Total  $          8,517,713 I haven’t seen any of these films, but if they’re being distributed, I hope that they’re actually good enough to be shown on a cinema screen. What really needs to be done I believe is that they should put more effort in the marking of these films.These films need more commercial advertising so that it gets the exposure they deserve. They need to be shown at the big 3 cinemas to get the public watching as you can only make so much money from Aussie Film Lovers.The general public don’t even know these film exist, I know, because I consider myself to be one of the general public audience.Probably in the long run, these film will break even in DVD sales or rental. But that’s a thin margin to get the Australian film industry going.